Here I was – on the couch for an early scan. Blissfully unaware of all that we as a family would have to go through for the next year. The midwife looks at the screen – "there is a small beating heart". . . . . . . . . "and here we have one more". . . . . . . The confusion was total – did my child have two hearts? Oh there are two kids? You can't hold two children at once! We don't have room for two children in the small apartment! How am I going to get two children up and down to the second floor! We can't be in our car with two children in car seats and a double stroller! – The midwife dropped all contact with me and instead began to inform my husband about what was at stake here. My name is Camilla, I am 35 years old and today have identical twin boys aged 4.5 years.

When the shock had subsided and we had turned to the idea of ​​having two children at the same time, the seriousness began to set in. Apart from a lot of vomiting, the pregnancy was relatively painless until we reached the malformation scan in week 21. The nice lady with the scanning machine looked at me in wonder after everything had been reviewed and carefully asked if I had had my cervix measured – something I had asked several times during the pregnancy various professionals, whether they could measure (my mother has given birth to 3 children prematurely due to a shortened cervix) – but no one would. The scan that day showed 8mm of life support neck left (it should be over 2.5cm) and it all got a bit acute and chaotic. A doctor looks me in the eyes, and her comment is still imprinted in my head – "You have to consider whether this is worth fighting for". . . . . . . At the time I didn't know how big of a fight it would be – but I am still outraged by her comment – of course my children are worth fighting for!

The next 8 weeks were spent in hospital for several weeks, twice cerclage (a wire that closes the cervix completely), countless scans of both the cervix and the fetus – nothing was ever completely good, and it was 8 unimaginably long weeks with a constant fear of to lose my boys.

29+0 was the day when my cervix was no longer of any help – I woke up with contractions and after an examination at Rigshospitalet it was clear – I was 2 cm dilated and they had to come out NOW. It ended in an emergency caesarean section, and out came two small lives of 1075 and 1245 grams. But they lived. And they survived. We were hospitalized in the neonatal unit for 7 weeks before being discharged to THO (early home stay) – It was a huge pressure to be hospitalized, with a constant fear of losing and of what the consequences of the early birth would be later. It was hard. Dung hammering hard. Little lives that constantly stopped breathing. Small lives that fought. Little lives that grew. Little lives that one day were big enough to leave the ward and come home.

Today, as mentioned, my boys are 4.5 years old – they are looked after at home and live their best lives. For them and for us as a family, it has come at a price that they were born much too early – but they are healthy and strong – and they were and are absolutely worth fighting for – every eternal and single day!

– written by Camilla Dam Rude, twin mother of Oliver and Bastian